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:Gaming

“Twitch Interactive Inc., the company formerly known as Justin.TV, recently notched a major milestone when it recorded 45 million viewers watching 13 billion minutes of streaming video games in a single month.”

Live broadcasting has typically been focused on console gaming via PlayStations and Xboxes, but now even mobile gaming is getting into the broadcasting fray. Video games have been a spectator sport in regions such as South Korea for years, but it appears the North American audience is growing in interest and numbers.

For game publishers who initially were very guarded over copyright concerns are also now recognizing the undeniable link between broadcasting game content and growing game sales. All of those live broadcasts on services like Twitch and walkthrough videos on YouTube are helping sell their games and the publishers didn’t have to spend a penny to create that content. Everybody wins.

“Twitch announced via a partnership with Gameloft that its broadcast platform is going mobile for the first time ever. Asphalt 8: AirBorne is a popular arcade-style racer for iOS being billed as the first ever mobile game to feature Twitch’s live-stream technology. More titles are said to be on the way, too. “Live broadcasting represents one of the most important shifts in the way people play games,” said Matthew DiPietro, Twitch VP of Marketing, in a statement.

Apple sold 1 million iPhone 3Gs in its first three days of availability. (to compare) Apple sold 1 million 1st-generation iPhones in 74 days….U.S. sales of video game hardware and software rose 53 percent in June from a year ago …“These numbers are mind bogglingly large,” said Michael Pachter, a Wedbush Morgan analyst.